Live from the Bataclan

AllMusic Review
by Joslyn Layne

Live from the Bataclan presents four songs from a 1995 performance in Paris. It captures the magic of an entranced, adoring audience as they listen to the vocal acrobatizing and seductive voice of Jeff Buckley. (It's also a surprisingly large crowd, considering how short a time Grace had been out.) Overall, the selections are very quiet and tender -- just voice and guitar -- but the loud tune (and only one with the band) comes first: a slightly stretched out incarnation of "Dream Brother," and a particularly throat-ripping, emotionally tortured rendition at that. Next comes a galloping 12-minute clap-along version of Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do." By the time Buckley switches over to French during his delivery of a medley of "Je N'En Connais Pas la Fin " and "Hymne a L'Amour," the crowd erupts at the end of every phrase, catching him off guard with their enthusiasm. It gets to be a bit much, and the crowd almost manages to cut the song short with their enthusiastic approval, but the evident enjoyment of all present will be shared by fans. The last selection is a nearly ten-minute version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." During it, the crowd momentarily becomes the backing choir, softly chanting "hallelujah" while Buckley takes it quieter until the song eventually dwindles out.